Tories propose end of retirement, scrapping pensions and volunteers to replace NHS doctors

I have to agree with Mike over at Vox Political when he said that Mr Pride must have a stronger stomach than most people, if he can wade through Conservative home long enough to find rubbish like this. It’s an extreme opinion, but it all logically follows existing Tory policy. The Tories have raised the retirement age to 70, and I think there were murmurs last year or the year before encouraging people to work into their retirement. A few years ago, the Republicans in America were ranting about how they couldn’t cut pensions, although that was where most American welfare spending went. Throughout the late ’90s and early years of this century there was right-wing moaning about the soaring costs of the pensions bill due to an aging population.

As for the idea that you can get rid of NHS doctors and replace them with clerks, one of the commenters on Mr Pride’s blog points out that this is what the Tories have already done with teachers. There are only a small number of them, and most of the teaching is done by teaching assistants. ‘Cause they’re cheaper. Of course it’s lunacy to try to replace doctors, who are by necessity highly trained professionals, with volunteer workers, but none of this seems to penetrate the thick skulls of public schoolboys and schoolgirls, their minds all aglow with Thatcherite ideals of shrinking the state and the welfare bill.

As for Hill himself, by his photo he looks like someone, who has no experience outside the Tory bubble of people like himself, all whining and complaining about the demands of the poor on the rich, and how wonderful Milton Friedman was.

“85 per cent of a typical doctor’s work can be done perfectly well by a ‘physician’s assistant’ with a fraction of the training or wages. Volunteers would receive pay, training, and legal rights to take…